Friday, September 15, 2006

Berny Wolf

Animator Berny Wolf passed away recently at the age of 95. Information and tributes to him are now popping up in various places. Unfortunately, I have nothing to add but I do want to point out where you can read the information.

Over at Cartoon Brew, Mark Kausler has contributed a biography of Wolf. Mark Evanier has contributed some personal memories of Wolf from the TV animation era. Mark's entry includes a link to the Fleischer Betty Boop cartoon The Old Man of the Mountain. On the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive, Stephen Worth has written about Wolf, posted some model sheets that Wolf worked on at the Iwerks studio and put up a quicktime of the Betty Boop cartoon Minnie the Moocher, where Wolf was responsible for rotoscoping Cab Calloway and turning him into a walrus.

Alberto Becattini's listing for Wolf claims that Wolf was a puppeteer on the Howdy Doody television series. Nobody else is mentioning this, but Wolf's career was so varied that it's very possible.

Ray Pointer's DVD compilation of Fleischer Out of the Inkwell cartoons includes some interview footage with Wolf.

There's some more personal reminiscences of Wolf on this thread at Animation Nation.

UPDATE: John Cawley has written some memories of Berny Wolf during Wolf's time at Film Roman. See John's entry for September 15.

3 comments:

I don't know if you read my comment posted in response to you post on "Mickey's Birthday Party", Part 3 back in July, but I mentioned my encounter with Berny Wolf when he was doing some freelancing on a commercial at Dale Baer's studio in the early 90's (probably would have been '90 or '91 , because I was back at Disney in 1992) . Anyway, some reports on Berny mentioned that he retired from animation around 1985, but he was still doing freelance at least as late as '90 or '91. The man had a long career in animation !

About Me

I've worked as an animator, writer, producer and director in TV animation for 29 years. I created the cgi series Monster By Mistake.
I hold a Masters degree from York University in Cinema and Media Studies and am currently teaching animation at Sheridan College.
I can be contacted at mark(dot)mayerson(at)sheridanc(dot)on(dot)ca.